The King County Housing Authority and its former Executive Director Stephen Norman agreed to pay $3.6 million to three female former staff members and change how employee matters are handled in an out-of-court settlement to a 2022 lawsuit.
In 2022, Helen Howell, Jill Stanton and Jennifer Ramirez Robson filed a 42-page complaint in federal court, alleging the housing authority violated state and federal laws that protect people from racial and gender-based discrimination. The complaint included extensive examples claiming disparagement, pay disparities, personal attacks, a hostile work environment and retaliation they experienced under Norman’s leadership.
In a statement on the settlement, the plaintiffs’ attorney Victoria Vreeland said the lawsuit was primarily focused on changing the culture of the agency and her clients refused a settlement until the housing authority and Norman agreed to corrective action. The $3.6 million will be divided equally among the three women, she said.
Vreeland said these corrective actions requested were “specifically designed to address the practices which resulted in the inequitable treatment of women and people of color at KCHA.”
The settlement was signed in early November by all parties, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by The Seattle Times.
In addition to receiving monetary compensation, which will cover damages and legal fees the plaintiffs incurred, the agreement lays out four fundamental changes King County Housing Authority must make to improve equity and to ensure more fair treatment of its current staff.
Under the new agreement, King County Housing Authority must now limit board positions to two terms. Previously, members on the volunteer board could serve indefinitely. In addition, it added new guardrails and steps that the authority’s executive director must take if hiring or promoting outside of usual HR protocols. The agreement required the authority to improve its employee performance appraisal process. And it now requires the authority to provide annually a much more detailed workforce demographic report to its board.
“The issues they [the plaintiffs] raised prompted KCHA to further scrutinize how the workplace and culture impacts those whose voices have historically not been equally heard,” the authority shared in a prepared statement on its website.
Howell, who is African American, was heavily recruited to join the authority’s staff as a member of its executive leadership team, the complaint said, making her the only person of color on the team at the time. Howell is the current interim leader of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and previously served as interim director of Seattle’s Human Services Department.
The lawsuit claimed that shortly after beginning at the authority, “Howell observed an agency-wide culture of fear exhibited by women and people of color, and lack of equality and respect toward women and people of color including promotional favoritism.”
Stanton started at the authority in 2018. The lawsuit claimed that within two months of beginning her new job, Stanton received complaints from over 20 people who shared concerns about Norman’s mistreatment of women and some advised her that “the only way to avoid or deflect his abuse was to humor him, to flatter him to ingratiate herself, and to even act flirtatious.”
Norman is a well-known affordable-housing leader in the region and was employed as executive director of the authority from 1997 until his retirement at the end of 2021, according to the complaint.
“KCHA has decided to resolve this matter, avoiding a protracted legal process and enabling its leadership and team to focus on the critical work of serving those in need,” according to a statement released by the authority.
In 2022, a spokesperson for the authority, Rhonda Rosenberg, told The Seattle Times that the authority’s budget totals more than $400 million. It employs about 450 employees and provides rental housing and rental assistance to approximately 23,400 households.
The authority receives money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and administers the Section 8 housing voucher program.
